To my knowledge, Lionel has produced only two items from its 1930s stable of streamliners for collectors. These are the Rail Chief cars and, if I’am correct, a special edtion of the first Union Pacific streamliner, M 10,000 for its train collectors club. Like the scale model makers, they have avoided reproducing the M10005 City of Denver even though it’s hard to find. I obtained a set about twenty two years ago. I have seen very few since that time. Two years ago, I saw at a train collectors show, a four car green set. It must had been just painted a two tone green since the department store special green City of Denver came in only three and two car sets. It would be nice, if Lionel would reproduce the green City of Denever Set for collectors. By the way, Sears also had a department store set of the City of Denver. Is there any collector that can tell me how this set differed from the standard set since it’s is listed as being yellow and having four cars? By Federal Fair Trade policies, large department stores had to have their sets differ in some way from the standard sets since they sold in such a large volume, at a lower price. If they had sold the standard sets, the smaller retailer would not have had a chance.
Lionel could do one better. Instead of repeating past, why not produce the City of San Francisco? Although this appeared to look like the City of Denver, it was different in some ways. The power car was taller by two feet and had a larger head lamp. The coaches were similar to the M10000 train. Lionel already has the cars. A realistic power car could be produced, perhaps in plastic. The exsisting cars could be cut in one half the original size since this would not be a scale model. A four car consist could be made since the original train was eleven cars long, too long for a reasonable size toy train.&n